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 Guy Aceto, art director for Air Force Magazine, made his first “Viper slide” into the backseat of an F-16D from the 68th FS at Moody AFB, Georgia. “The first thing I noticed was the view. Even from the backseat, it is just incredible. The pilot was great, too. He put the airplane just about anywhere, making my job easy. Although easy is a relative term, when I’m trying to rewind and reload while pulling four or five g’s. By the second sortie, I realized I was getting to do something very special. If I had anything to say about it, I wasn’t about to stop.”
Aceto’s magazine, the monthly publication of the Air Force Association, has published a series of photo essays at a number of bases around the world. He likes to get out of his office and into the “real” Air Force to photograph F-16s on base and write about their crews, among them the 388th FW of Hill AFB, Utah. “Hill seemed a logical choice for an up-close look at the Block 40 and the LANTIRN. The guy up front had to get his training done, too, so we dropped our bombs and did our required strafing passes just like the rest of the jets. I learned more about air-to-ground in that photo mission than I did in any other flight.
A photo sortie is no easy ride. It’s often done as a ‘noninterruption of training’ flight, especially in these busy times. Our photo features show our readers just what it’s like for the crews and pilots who perform these jobs day after day. That’s really what any good photographer wants to do anyway.”
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